New moon

Curt's memorial service was today and it was wonderful in the way that only a small-town memorial can be wonderful. So many loving people gathered together, each contributing in their own way to a circle of love and caring and life. Good music, good food, kind words, fond memories.

Ack. Now I'm crying again.

I was a frickity-fracking mess through the whole thing. I wept through the Bach and Beethoven violin and cello pieces, used 17 tissues while the rabbi and the friends were speaking.

Then Gael had to go and read the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem I told her not to read because I was sure no one could read it without sobbing, and she read it in a clear, perfectly composed tone:

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

I was so proud of her.

...and that set me and Anne-Marie, who was clutching my hand, off all over again.

It was not a pretty sight, people.

But then...then...a miracle happened. A rainbow? A cloud in the shape of a dove? No.

The service was held in the community center at the park. The speakers stood with their backs to a big picture window that framed a view of the green grass, the trees, the perfect warm day.

As the rabbi made his closing remarks, a man came and lay down on the grass, underneath a tree, with his back to us. And even though he was about 50 yards away, I could clearly see about 5 inches of his exposed buttcrack.

I was suddenly, overwhelmingly happy. I know without a doubt that Curt would have approved.